National, world news reverberate in Acadiana

Last week was a big news week for Acadiana, even in national and world news.

This region's history is closely linked with Roman Catholicism, so the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was closely watched here.

Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger, was elevated to the papacy in 2005. He was supposed to be a caretaker pope in the absence of a charismatic potential successor for Pope John Paul II.

Still, Benedict won some popularity of his own, especially in reaching out to the other great monotheistic religions. One of the biggest knocks against him - that he restored four excommunicated bishops, one of whom turned out to be a Holocaust denier - was particularly damning for a German clergyman. It was also unjust.

Benedict's cousin, a developmentally disabled boy, was murdered by Nazis under the regime's mental hygiene laws.

Benedict's real difficulty was that he couldn't solve the problems no one else has been able to solve, including the seemingly endless cases of sexual abuse by priests and Vatican financial dealings that have been criticized for at least 30 years.

Benedict deserved better than he got.

A day before Benedict officially stepped down, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the Shelby County, Ala., attempt to have a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act overturned.

That provision, Section 5, requires specific areas of the country, mostly jurisdictions in Southern states, to get changes in voting rules "pre-cleared" by judges or the U.S. Justice Department to make sure they don't diminish minority voting strength. That means the feds have to approve before your parish council, school board or city council can redraw voting districts when the new census numbers come out.

Section 5 seems likely to be overturned. (But then, that was true for the Affordable Care Act, too.)

The rationale for opposing Section 5 seems to be that the bad old days of Jim Crow are over. But if you look at all the attempts across the country to enact ID laws and limit early voting, you have to wonder whether Section 5 should be repealed or expanded to include the whole country.

Reach Bill Decker at (337) 289-6327 or bdecker@theadvertiser.com

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National, world news reverberate in Acadiana

Last week was a big news week for Acadiana, even in national and world news.This region's history is closely linked with Roman Catholicism, so the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was closely watched